Please Help ID This Skull

[John Bart]

Hi all,
Any and all opinions appreciated on this metal skull.
Early SS ( (that would be too good to be true) ) or Imperial Army perhaps? (not my area of expertise)
The highlights on the bone, hard to show in pic, are highly burnished
and have a nice chromelike glisten. Wish I could capture in my pic.
Thanks,
.... John

[John Bart]

Rear of piece....

[Gary Wood]

John,

what size is it?

cheers,

Gary

[John Bart]

John,

what size is it?

cheers,

Gary

Hi Gary,
It measures approximately 1-1/16" high x 1-3/16" across.
Thanks for asking. Hope this helps.

John

[Matt L]

That's a standard Panzer skull- for the long collar tabs- a rather nice one too

Matt

[RzM]

SS skull.

Hi John,

I always thought that this skull was early allgemeine SS. If you look at the picture on pg. 123 of "SS REGALIA" Seidel - Dittmarsh wears a similar skull on his visor cap. I don't believe that this skull is for a panzer collar tab, it's size is to large.

Best,

John

[Matt L]

Whoops- indeed John's right, the standard Panzer collar tab skull is about 20mm x 23mm... so this one is too large. My mistake.

[Robin Lumsden]

John.

Firstly, this is a very nice example of an original skull

To cut a very long story short, the 1st & 2nd Leibhusaren Regiments of the Imperial Army wore what we know as 'Prussian-pattern' skulls of this size on their dress caps.

They were worn right through the 19th and into the 20th century, and there were many slightly different variations.

I posted a picture on the SS forum recently (under 'SS Rings') showing some of these variants.

The Prussian skull was then adopted by some Freikorps units and by the SS.

The bottom line is that, in the early days, the SS used a number of the variant Prussian skulls, including war surplus, so there is no way of determining if your skull was ever used by an SS man.

What it is, without doubt, is an original Leibhusar cap skull.

The picture below show a 1st Leibhusar cap, with the standard type skull. This was the type officially adopted by the SS and used until 1934 (and unofficially after that date).

[Robin Lumsden]

Another variant on a cap of the Iron Division (Freikorps), c. 1919

[Robin Lumsden]

It was also used on collar patches, long before the SS-Totenkopfverbande adopted death's head patches.

This patch is from the Wehrwolf organisation of the 1920s/early 30s.

Note the 'red eyes', as later used on the SS evening dress badge.

[Peter Wiking]

But look on the eyes and jaw of John Bart´s skull. They are different to yours Robin.

Cheers.
Peter Wiking

[Robin Lumsden]

Peter.


FOR GOD'S SAKE.


WILL YOU READ THE POSTS.




THERE WERE MANY DIFFERENT VARIANTS OF THESE SKULLS.

[John Bart]

It was also used on collar patches, long before the SS-Totenkopfverbande adopted death's head patches.

This patch is from the Wehrwolf organisation of the 1920s/early 30s.

Note the 'red eyes', as later used on the SS evening dress badge.

Thank you all for your opinions/comments.
Robin, thanks for the great pics!
Greatly appreciate your in-depth insights...................

John

[Peter Wiking]

Peter.


FOR GOD'S SAKE.


WILL YOU READ THE POSTS.




THERE WERE MANY DIFFERENT VARIANTS OF THESE SKULLS.

Robin. No need for that large text.
It was only an observation from me on the skulls.

Cheers.
Peter Wiking

[Ian Hulley]

Well Robin,it's nice to see that it isn't just me that's having a bad day and feeling unneccesarily tetchy .I believe Peter now knows that there were several different styles (and I do hope that the moderators don't come down too heavily on you.)

Kind regards,

Ian Hulley